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November 25, 2017

Elf on the Shelf? Sorted!

Last year was our first year of elfing and by 10th Dec I had had enough of scrabbling around at 11pm trying to sort out an ingenious plan for what Edwin had been up to. I was so ill-prepared for what I thought was going to be a fun, spur-of-the-moment activity and actually turned into a something to dread.

I thought I was creative enough to pull it off.

Turns out I was wrong.😂

I resolved that 2017 would be different. 2017 would be organised. 2017 would be stress-free and sorted.

So here goes – none of these are my ideas, they have come from a whole host of other sources. There are many more adventurous ideas than these out there, but I reckon these are manageable if you have had a busy day, been at work late, got a newborn and so on …..

My top tips –

Elf on the Shelf

1. Start small and build. Save the best ones until towards the end. If you wrap up the toilet / loo roll the living room / cling film the kitchen door on day one, you are going to run out of steam before the end of the first week – work out which ones are deffo worth saving!!

2. Plan out what you are going to do each night. Take the thinking out of it and have a list. Anyone who know me, know I love a list but this is a great example of when listing helps. Honest – I promise.

If you need props, get them sorted – for example I LOVE the eyes on the food in the fridge, but need to get my bum in gear to get the eyes or else I can just cross it off the list.

Use mine (from the 25 pics in this blog) or make your own. By doing it now, it will mean less stress during December and more time for Bailey’s / gin / mulled wine 😃

3. Use tasks to keep the kids engaged, it makes it fun, a bit more interactive and they are very simple to do. There are a couple of examples on the pics below – Eg. I have hidden 6 decorations, can you find them? I have hidden sweets around the house, can you find them? Follow a treasure map to find some golden (chocolate) coins. Or, for something a little different, leave elfie buried in a pile of old toys and ask your children to donate 3 each to charity.

Maybe at the weekend leave ingredients to make something – cookies / cakes / reindeer food. Or equipment to make Christmas cards or decorations.

4. Cheat. There is a brilliant Facebook page which sells props for your elves and they are cheap – we have bought a few just to give us 5 days in the bag with zero effort required! From elf sizes sunglasses and coffee cups to board games and bikes, they have it covered – check them out here.

5. If you forget don’t panic! Have a letter ready explaining that you were super tired from all your naughtiness so took the night off watching Christmas films.

Make sure the next night is something great!

6. For more ideas – try Pinterest or join one of the (many) Facebook groups which will keep you updated of lots of fabulous ideas. Some of them are a little time consuming for me but hey, they may be just what you are looking for!

Finally – if all else fails and you want to throw the elf out of the window, don’t do it, crack open the Christmas wine instead. 😃

To find out where to see Father Christmas around Manchester this year, have a read of our suggestions here.